So he was never subject to the outbursts Woods has had on the sidelines at Morehead State. Last week, he and the nation saw Woods erupt on Devon Atkinson during an 81-70 loss at Kentucky.

Before this, Morehead State had become known for pulling off upsets in the NCAA Tournament and Kenneth Faried, who has become an impact player with the Denver Nuggets.

In fact, Harper hit a game winner to beat Louisville in the 2011 NCAA Tournament, but he’s confident the Woods’ situation won’t disrupt the program. Woods is in his first season at Morehead State.

“It is what it is,” said Harper, who ended his career at Morehead State in 2010-11. “Everybody makes mistakes. He just happened to make a mistake on national TV. I don’t think it’s going to cause too much harm to the program.”

Woods was suspended for a game and returned for Wednesday’s game at Marshall. Morehead State lost, 70-67.

“After a while, once they continue winning, I think all that will go away,” Harper said. “He just made a mistake. Everybody does it. We’re all human. We make mistakes. Hopefully he can learn from it and continue to have success with the school.”

The Erie BayHawks have reduced their roster to 11 after waiving Al Nolen and Marvin Roberts today.

The 6-foot, 1-inch Nolen, a point guard who Erie picked in the fifth round of the 2011 D-League Draft, didn’t participate in any of the scrimmages as he’s recovering from having a pin removed from the foot that he broke in his senior year at Minnesota last season.

Roberts, a 6-5 guard out of Florida International, had issues with a groin injury, but did play in the three-team scrimmage Saturday at Penn State Behrend. He was invited to training camp after a free-agent tryout.

Now the BayHawks have one more player to cut by 5 p.m. on Nov. 23.

The interesting part about this last cut is forward D.J. Kennedy is just getting back to doing more in camp. Out of St. John’s the 6-5 Kennedy is coming off a season-ending knee injury he had in March.

Erie could make him an injury waiver and retain his rights. If Erie keeps him, that means a small forward/big guard will most likely go.

The guys that fall into the smll forward/big guard category are Chaz McCrommon, who joined the BayHawks at the end of last season, Kyle Spain, who played for Erie last season, Mychel Thompson, who was a third-round pick out of Pepperdine or Tirrell Baines, who was a fourth-round pick out of Marshall.

However, Erie may go a completely different direction to make its final cut. The BayHawks will likely make their final cut either after tonight’s practice or tomorrow morning because they’re headed to Rio Grande Valley on Wednesday for Friday’s season opener against the Vipers.

After starting training camp Nov. 9, the Erie BayHawks had their media day Thursday and an evening practice at the LECOM Health and Wellness Center.

Here are a few notables:

1. General manager of basketball operations, Allan Houston, hasn’t been in Erie for camp, but is expected to arrive this weekend on Sunday. Erie coach Jay Larranaga said he doesn’t plan to cut a player until Houston has seen the group.

Houston is the assistant general manager with the New York Knicks, who are in a hybrid partnership with the BayHawks.

2. Two players – D.J. Kennedy (knee) of St. John’s and Al Nolen (foot) out of Minnesota – haven’t practiced due to injury. Both had surgeries in their final college seasons.

3. Larranaga hoped to use practice players in camp and had one in 7-footer Jeff Foote, but received a notice from the D-League that teams can’t use practice players in training camp. Larranaga knew Foote from when he was an assistant at Cornell.

1st round: (7th overall) SG Cory Higgins (6-5, 190, Colorado). Avg. 16.1 points his senior season at Colorado in 2010-11. He’s the son of former NBA player and the president of basketball operations for the Charlotte Bobcats, Rod Higgins.

A few years ago, Mike Gansey led West Virginia to the Eilte Eight of the 2005 NCAA Tournament.

“Marshall? Oh man.”

That’s what Mike Gansey said after spotting the Marshall University skull cap I was wearing Tuesday. It was all good.

See, Gansey, who just joined the Erie BayHawks last week, was a star player at West Virginia and years before that, I was a sports editor at Marshall University.

Marshall and WVU are state rivals.

We both laughed about it and although I was planning to talk with new BayHawk about his first season in the D-League, I decided to interview him about WVU and what’s going on with his former coach at WVU, Michigan head coach John Beilein.

Bob MacKinnon has coached the Colorado 14ers to a D-League best 29-12 record in his first season.

Colorado 14ers head coach/general manager Bob MacKinnon has been to Erie before.

He was an assistant coach at Mercyhurst College from 1982 to 1985. So he’s been looking forward to returning to Erie for tonight’s D-League game against the Erie BayHawks (23-21).

“It’s going to be great,” MacKinnon said. “I’ve already gotten e-mails from people. People calling me and stuff. I think we might have a little fan base there.”

The Buffalo, N.Y., native has also been an assistant at George Washington, Niagara, Notre Dame, North Carolina and Marshall before working for the Los Angeles Lakers as a scout and as the the associate director of the 2005-07 Lakers’ summer camps.

MacKinnon has also been a head coach at the United States Merchant Marine Academy in the 1990s, but he never envisioned himself coaching in the D-League.

“It’s been a great experience. Obviously we’re a pretty good team so that helps. We have good players. Fun guys to coach and it’s been a great experience this year.”

Leading his 14ers (29-12), who have the league’s best record, to a win tonight would make his experience a little greater, though.